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Lucy Komisar"The Milk Train Doesn't
Stop Here Anymore" is
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| Olympia Dukakis as Flora Goforth. Photo by Joan Marcus. |
This production is saved by the extraordinary
performance of Olympia Dukakis, whose portrayal of the garish,
bullying, self-centered Flora Goforth takes fire and pulls you
in till you feel part of the conflagration.
Flora, whom Williams burdens with a Dickensian name, was a showgirl
whose first husband made her a millionaire. She proceeded to
marry three others, but loved only the last, a young poet, who,
driving the red sports care she gave him, crashed and died on
the Corniche from Monte Carlo.
Now in her sixties, still with her American southern accent,
she lives near Naples in a villa atop a cliff on the Amalfi
coast overlooking the sea. It's 1962. She is dictating her memoirs,
mostly about her lovers and social life among the international
set, to Frances Black, "Blackie," (Maggie Lacey) a
rather prim and conventional young woman (from a good women's
college) whose husband recently died.
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| Darren Pettie as Chris and Olympia Dukakis as Flora. Photo by Joan Marcus. |
Into that often bizarre scene comes a strange
man, Christopher Flanders (Darren Pettie), 39, who makes mobiles
and supports himself by attaching himself to rich elderly ladies.
(The kindness of strangers?) Given their ages and conditions,
the women all die, which has given him the name "angel
of death." Yes, this play is unsubtly about death.
Chris has climbed up a goat path and breached a fence to trespass
on the grounds. She directs him to a cottage, and you wonder
what each has in store for the other. Flora spends a lot of
time in a nightdress lolling on a round bed under a skylight,
frequently buzzing to summon Blackie to take notes. She is a
woman who expects people to jump to her orders. She refuses
to face up to her own mortality, though she takes morphine for
her "neuralgia." She in fact is a paean to life, glorying
in her past. There are frequent sounds of sea gulls and a lot
of turgid prose.
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| Edward Hibbert as the Witch of Capri and Olympia Dukakis as Flora. Photo by Joan Marcus. |
She is visited by a gay friend (Edward Hibbert), known as the Witch of Capri, a fey blonde fellow who seems overdressed for the island. Hibbert simpers too much. However, he fits into the weird mood. Though I could not figure out why he could not pronounce Capri (accent on the first syllable), while Flora could. The full costumed kabuki dance she puts on for him is a show stopper. She is challenged by Chris. Attempting to maintain control, she refuses to let him eat. She declares, "I give away nothing, I sell and I buy." In fact, they both want to use each other. He will wait her out.
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| Maggie Lacey as Blackie and Darren Pettie as Chris. Photo by Joan Marcus. |
Pettie as Chris and Lacey as Blackie do their
best to bring their characters to life, though they seem uncomfortable
in the setting, which gets more surreal as the play goes on.
This play was written in 1963, the year Williams' long-time
lover died. It is almost a satire of the writer's best works
of the 40's and 50's and has only historical interest.
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